The Dying World
by Athk0r3
Summary: The year is 2045, and the world is ending. Much like the human race, Earth is on her last legs, and the apocalypse has begun. There was a saying among humans, that one is an atheist until faced with death. And just like the saying goes, religion can be a great escape from the world. But that is all it is, an escape. Right?
1. Prolouge: The World is Ending

**AN**

**Welp, looks like I started another story. Guess I really do hate myself... And it's a Warhammer FF? Wow, I must _really_ hate myself. Anyway, please review and let me know what you guys think! Enjoy.**

* * *

Time: 2045 A.D.

Location: Rio Grande, South America

So apparently the world is ending.

Let's start from the beginning. The year is 2040, and Earth is doing wonderfully. We managed to turn around our greenhouse gas problem, revert global warming, and generally improve the life of the general population. Science, the arts, all of it was making leaps and bounds, with new tech being slung around every day it seemed.

Then IT came.

It was on October 12, late in the day, maybe 7:00, when the meteor showed up. It came flying through the sky like a fireball, streaking across europe, the atlantic, before finally touching down somewhere in rural New Mexico. Official report says the feds got to it before anyone else and took it to Area 51 or something, but no one really knows.

All we do know is that a month later, a military cargo plane was shot down by the Russian government somewhere over the Yukon in Canada, and they got to it before the U.S. could respond.

Not even a week later, war is declared, pitting us and our allies against Russia and theirs. Unsurprisingly, the United States, NATO and the rest of our allies wiped the floor with Russia and her allies, and promptly occupied the Slavic Alliance, taking places like Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine and the other countries in the motherlands sphere of influence.

All was fine (relatively speaking) for about three months, when the U.S mobilized a lot of soldiers and sent them to a series of russian military facilities called Kelkorev, located near the municipality of Yanranay. Everyone assumed that we were just putting down the last throes of resistance, a couple of crotchety old russian generals holed up in some hidden bunker.

Thoughts began to change when after a week, U.S. soldiers were still being sent up there, with increasingly powerful supplies and vehicles. Even with the press being heavily censored, some details still slipped through, like the small fleet of gunships flying in, or the photos of an entire procession of hovertanks cruising into the depths of siberia.

After two weeks, 'The Video' was leaked. Apparently, a journalist with balls of steel snuck onto a truck and got almost a half hour of unedited footage of the incident which would be what would become known as First Contact, or Operation Extinction.

The video opens with footage from the back of a supply tuck a mile or so away from the outskirts of the complex. Not even five seconds in, gunshots and explosions are very clearly heard, and the entire truck full of soldiers was muttering nervously amongst themselves. About three minutes in, the truck comes to a stop, the gunshots playing havoc with the audio, making the gunfire all that can be heard.

The cameraman shifts as much as he can to get a good shot of the action. The camera shakily pans to capture the outer walk of Kelkorev in grim detail.

The place is in ruins, fires are raging across the entire shot, and a variable fleet of helicopters, hovercraft and gunships are strafing the complex with heavy ordinance. Rows and rows of soldiers stand behind heavy barriers and sandbags, rows of sharpened stakes and miles of barbed wire trying to contain...something.

While the video quality was not ideal, to say the least, the images of what the military was fighting was more than enough to start a global panic.

There was a point, about five minutes before the end of the video, where a brief lull in the suppressing fire let _them_ strike back. A full ten seconds of silence, and then the most ear rending, piercing shriek the human race had ever heard, a sound like thousands of nails on chalkboards and thousands of hissing snakes all screaming over each other, as the creatures responsible began to pour out of a breach in the perimeter wall.

Each being was identical, the only discriminating factors being the degree to which they were injured. Each one resembled some twisted cross between a lizard, chimpanzee, and some kind of monstrous beetle. Their lanky, emaciated, ape like torsos and forelimbs were wrapped taunt in greyish white scales, long, double jointed legs giving them a long, loping stride, balance held by long, stiff tails, which swayed as they bounded across the empty ground towards the lines of soldiers. Their backs were layered in thick, white plates of insectoid chitin, each section lighting up in a bright red glow as each individual creature locked onto a target with their reptilian heads. With skulls like bulky alligators, each lipless jaw possessed dozens of razor pointed fangs, always exposed to the world in a demented, toothy grin, as their four eyes, each set deep into the skull to give two sets of binocular eyes, smoldered in a shade of solid, glowing crimson, each triangular organ glaring at their chosen target.

As fast as any horse, each one of them streaked towards their chosen target, bounding over the rough, uneven ground with an alien grace and fluidity, four inch claws digging into the ground, pulling them ever closer to the soldiers pouring fire into their bodies, sending up sprays of bright orange blood.

The camera focused on one point of the attack, where already dozens of the creatures had died, their bullet riddled bodies leaking orange in heaps, which others hissed and screamed on the ground, tangled in barbed wire and impaled on stakes they'd flung themselves on in their fury, still clawing and snapping at the soldiers that poured gunfire into them.

A single beast leapt into the midst of the soldiers, it's quadrupedal form giving it unparalleled agility, hissing and screaming as it roared in wild bloodlust, standing only three feet at the shoulder, but nine feet long from snout to tail tip. It lunged at the nearest soldier, who reacted with a kick, the mechanically powered exo-suit enhancing his strength, caving in the monsters skull. It seemed one, well equipped soldier was able to deal with these things easily enough.

That didn't seem to matter too much, given that hundreds of them were now pouring across the soldiers, dozens of them ganging up on each, tearing them to shreds with their claws and ripping them apart with their jaws.

The last shot of the video is that of a beast standing on its hind legs, human blood running down its chest and a severed leg in its arm. It opened its jaws impossibly wide, nearly 180 degrees, its lower jaw separating into two, a glowing red membrane in between as an earsplitting roar burst forth from its throat.

The thirty minutes of nightmare fuel that set the world on fire was the only warning we got. But it was already too late. Already martial law had been declared all across europe, with all forms of non-military transportation being prohibited.

Only a week after Kelkorev was overrun, the world's militaries had set up a modern day maginot line at the edge of russia, and only two weeks after that, a final line of defense was being prepared in Germany, as what was left of Poland and the slavic countries burned. At this point, it wasn't very surprising when Germany fell, then France, Spain, and the rest of mainland europe.

Great Britain managed to hang on for a good month or two, and managed to give the rest of the remaining countries a fighting chance. They managed to capture one or two, trying desperately to find some critical weakness of the the creatures, now known as the 'Kelkorev'.

But the upside of this was that they actually managed to get a valuable piece of information; the Kelkorev are unable to function in saltwater, essentially making seas and oceans impassable barriers to them. But just as the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief, another problem presented itself.

As expected, the apparent apocalypse had resulted in the formation of a few religious cults, devoted to worshipping the Kelkorev as divine weapons, sent down from the heavens to cleanse the earth. These deranged psychos took it upon themselves to spread their message, specifically by smuggling a few Kelkorev into Britain.

Within a week, the British Empire was finally gone.

After they polished off the remains of the U.K., the Kelkorev moved all of their attention to the rest of the world. While the majority of the earth's focus was on the war for europe, the Kelkorev had been launching a crippling assault on Asia, swallowing up the Korean Alliance and Japan in days, having been brought to the island nation by cultists, suffering the same fate as Britain.

China lasted for some time, falling after a month, with India following shortly after, and southeast asia after that. Once europe and asia was under their control, the Kelkorev moved onto Africa. Going through the middle east and down through Russia, sweeping through the deserts with ease, until they were stopped by the Israeli-Egyptian Alliance. They dug their heels in, and threw everything that had at the greatest defense the world had ever known.

For three months, they held the line between the edge of Israel and the Suez Canal, and turned the land in between into hell. Everything was thrown at the Kelkorev, stopping them in their tracks, just trying to buy more time to evacuate as much of Africa as possible, before they were eventually overrun.

Then, with the approval of the remains of the Israeli-Egyptian Government, the U.S. went nuclear. Seven, 15 megaton nuclear warheads were detonated in the triangular piece of land between Egypt and Israel, buying Africa a little more time, which was sorely needed, now that a second incursion into Africa (thanks to cutlists in southern Spain and northern Morocco) was in progress.

By the time South Africa was lost, nearly seven hundred million people had been evacuated to south and north America. And in that time, southeast asia had fallen, cultist facilitating the jumps to Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Australia.

After three weeks, the rest of the world officially went dark, leaving America alone. The Pan-American Alliance was created, and incredible effort was put into trying to live with a new seven hundred million refugees, and for six months, it almost looked like we were going to make it through this.

And then they brought it here. For research. I guess they felt they needed to get a return on their investment.

No one bothered to tell the rest of us. We only found out when they nuked Area 51, lightning up the Nevada Skyline in atomic fire. And then everything fell apart again, because of course it didn't stop them.

We held out for quite a while, and I'm rather proud of that. It took them half a year to finish us off, chasing us down to the tip of South America, where we are right now. We're about to make a last ditch attempt to get out of dodge, but I'm just trying to stay hopeful.

There are rumors that New Zealand managed to escape this whole nightmare somehow, so we're stealing a boat. The plan is to gun it for the island, and hope for the best.

Hope is a funny thing. It can come from so many place, but like many people in times of crisis, ours came from religion. Something I'm rather proud of in fact, given it was my son who did it to us.

I, being in the U.S. military, essentially took charge of our band of survivors, and as such, my son had quite a few people who took him seriously. He recognized that there was nothing that was keeping us motivated to survive beyond basic human needs, and the entire group was feeling it. At least one every week or so, someone would die in their sleep. Not suicide, they simply didn't want to see tomorrow. They closed their eyes, and never woke up, the dreaded bleakness of the future sapping the will to live from them.

So me and my son evangelized our band of misfits. He had some old books with him, antiquated relics from the start of the 21st century, and we just acted like it wasn't pure fiction.

And it worked. Once we got everybody on board, it all got better. No one has died in their sleep for two months, we've been more happy and motivated than ever before, and general quality of life has shot up dramatically.

But anyway, we're about to take off, so depending on how this goes, this might be the last time I write in this journal.

Take care South America.

* * *

Time: 2045 A.D.

Location: Somewhere in the Pacific

"Hey Adam," Said Jack, leaning over the side of the commercial fishing trawler, half eaten nutrition bar in hand, "how're you doing?"

"I'm doing well," Adam sighed, gazing out across the grey sky, "still seasick."

"Well, the open ocean isn't for everyone…" Jack said, taking another bite, grimacing at the bland, somewhat earthy taste of the bar. "If you're feeling off, you should go back below decks, keep playing around with your guns."

"Jack." Adam glared at him, then glancing down, looking almost worried at the sight of a bulky handgun in a holster on his hip. "You know better than to insult them like that, they deserve respect."

"Sorry, I'm just messing with ya," Jack waved him off, as Adam began to turn around, moving to head down into the ship again, "see you later!"

"You as well," Adam called back, opening the door, a patch displaying a gear, half black, half white, with a skull, also half black and white, in the center, on a strip of fabric on his shoulder, "I'm going to go bless our guns again, just incase."

"Sure thing, take care."

"Thanks Jack." Adam said, as he crossed his arms over his chest, hands open, making the appearance of some kind of winged bird, with two heads (represented by his thumbs). "The Emperor Protects."

"The Emperor Protects." Jack responded, mimicking the gesture. Once Adam had left the deck, he turned and sighed to himself, his gaze once more falling on the grey horizon.

"I'm glad no one here knew anything about Warhammer."

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**AN**

**HAHA! And so we have the groundwork for my newest ambition. Please review and let me know what you think.**

**-Athk0r3**


	2. Chapter 1: 2067

**Hope y'all're (big oof to grammar) still enjoying this story, cause I've got another chapter. Obviously I'll be taking some liberties with the specifics of certain aspects of warhammer, but the reasoning for that shall be revealed in due time. **

**Onward!**

* * *

Time: 2067 A.D.

Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Church of the Omnissiah

"This day is one of remembrance, for today we honor a fallen hero." Came the booming voice of Marron, the current serving priest. "On this day, the fourteenth of February in the year of 2019, our people lost Opportunity, the martian rover, who became inoperable 5499 days into its ninety day mission."

The sea of people bowed their heads, showing their respect for the world famous rover, which was declared lost after a dust storm had presumably rendered it inactive, assumed to have covered it's solar panels.

The anniversary of it's death had become a national day of mourning, with day long ceremonies and masses held by the tech priests at churches across the remaining human territory.

"Performing its mission 61.1 times over, Opportunity's 15 years of service will be remembered forever as those of a true hero to Earth." Marron bowed his head, cybernetics whirring as his back mounted manipulator arm raised a single, burning candle in honor of the rover. "May your spirit find peace with the Omnissiah."

* * *

"It was a great service Archmagos," Came the gravelly voice of the soldier, "the first trip to Mars will be one to bring it back, mark my words,"

"You honor its spirit, Lord Commander," Marron replied, shaking the commanders outstretched hand, "but now I expect you to follow through with that." He said, chuckling.

"Trust me, I will." The commander replied, laughing good naturedly.

"But now, how is your arm?" The Archmagos said, grasping the metal appendage with his hand and looking it over, his augmented gaze scanning the sleek, red and black surface, and small, geometric lights that glowed softly, "you are reporting to your scheduled diagnostic appointments, correct?"

"Yes yes, of course." He said, flexing his arm, the servos gently whirring as the Archmagos requested, "You don't need to worry, your work is second to none."

"Mmm, good." The tech priest released his arm. "Anyway, I have developed a new feature for you, so I hope you'll drop by soon. I'm thinking of making it standard issue to manipulator prosthetics."

"It's that useful?"

"Possibly," Marron replied, his red robe shifting as he moved, hidden mechanics clicking and humming, "but it needs a little testing, of which I'm certain you can provide."

"I definitely can."

* * *

Location: Auckland, New Zealand

"Good evening Lord Commander," said the young Lexmechanic, gaze panning upwards to meet the commanders eyes, "We have been expecting you, Enginseer Danica will be with you shortly."

Giving the techpriest a nod, the commander continued on his way, through a series of hallways, before stopping at an automated door, with the words "Augment Diagnostic and Repair" written above it. After a quick swipe of a keycard, the door slid open, revealing a clean, white room, with a pair of metal chairs, one with a small adjustable platform mounted on the center chair.

"Hey Danica," The commander waved to the priest tapping away at a console in the corner of the room, "Archmagos Marron said he had something for me?"

"Oh!" The female Enginseer jumped a little, having not heard him walk in, "Hello Lord. Commander!" She said, clearly excited, stepping away from her console.

"Archmagos Marron told me about the upgrades he's developed for you," the rather short Adeptus Mechanicus looking even smaller when compared to the Lord Commander, her body obscured by flowing red robes, "but he wanted you to go through a checkup first, just in case."

"Makes sense," The Lord Commander trailed off as the cybernetic woman dragged him into the center of the room and sat him down, "I guess we'll just jump right into it then?"

* * *

"Have you had any issues?" Danica asked, gently prodding and observing the mechanical left arm, external plate discarded, showing the intricate cybernetic components, occasionally muttering to herself in binary.

"No malfunctions." The commander said, trying and failing to adjust himself, seeing as how his arm was locked down on the platform next to the chair, and the cold metal on his bare skin not a very pleasant feeling, but Danica had insisted he disrobe partially, given that the connection point for his prosthetic was just past his left elbow.

"Any more phantom pains?" She asked, pausing to look at him, his remaining eye looking into hers, and a leather eyepatch obscuring his left. She looked down at his torso, a twisted mess of scar tissue over light skin, countless old claw wounds, bite marks, and healed lacerations contrasting heavily with his most consistent scars.

Tracing his skeleton, were dozens of fine, white, surgical marks, around his shoulders, down his arms, one on each rib, and down his spine, the web of markings looking like organic circuitry.

"Don't worry about that." The commander responded, averting his gaze, to which the priestess frowned, an expression partially hidden by her red hood.

"Jack…" She said, her tone getting annoyed.

"Fine." Jack said, "It's not bad, just constant. If a little aching is gonna bring me down, then the Kelkorev are gonna have a field day with me."

Danica responded by pulling him into a sitting hug, resting her face in the crook of his neck, her slim metal hands, designed specifically to work with small and delicate machinery, gripping his back, sending a few shivers down his spine.

"Jack David Ahab." She said, pulling away from him, placing her hands on his shoulders. "Tell us, please, even if it's a little."

"I'm fine really," Jack said, left arm still magnetically secured to the table, making this a bit awkward, "it doesn't bother me that much."

"Jack…" Danica pouted, giving him a pair of sad eyes, "you still need to tell me. I still owe you so much."

"By the Throne Danica," he said, sounding exasperated, "what could you possibly owe me for?"

"When we were still running. Those last few weeks in south america, in 2045." She spoke sincerely. "When you told us about everything, the imperium, the Emperor, our world. You gave me the chance to serve the Emperor and Machine God."

"You can't possibly owe me for that." Jack said, as the female techpriest pulled away, and started reattaching the external plating to his cybernetic arm.

"Maybe," she said, as the last plate was fitted onto his arm, "but at the very least I should thank you."

"Maybe…" Jack said, clenching his metal hand into a fist, flexing, giving it a quick flexibility check. After a moment or two, Danica spoke again.

"How about your other enhancements? You eye?" She said, reaching for his face, putting on hand on his chin and using the other to lift his eyepatch up, exposing a metal eye socket and organ.

"My eye is fine, Danica," Jack said, reaching up to scratch his short beard and fix his eyepatch, covering up the cybernetic, so the harsh red glow of the prosthetic wouldn't be visible, retying the black cord around the back of his head, hiding it in the unruly mess of dark brownish hair that was pulled back into a small ponytail. His fingers gently prodded the strings of the patch, so that the two on the left side went above and below his ear.

"We could fix that you know." Danica said, frowning as she took a look at his face. Clearly an american, Jack had rough features, a strong jawline, and a lot of damage. A scar on his lower lip, on his left cheek, a straight line running from the top of his forehead down to his jaw, dancing over his right eye, and on the left side, a mass of clawmarks around his eye, a single line running across his nose, and a set of three, parallel scars on his left ear, the top fourth of which was missing.

"Nah," Jack shrugged, pulling his undershirt and BDU back on, the tough, well made olive drab clothing fitting him like a glove, "I kind like it, makes me feel...badass." He said, striking a pose, gazing dramatically into the middle distance, bringing a giggle out of Danica.

"Of course you'd say that, dummy," Danica said, shaking her head and smiling, "now get over here, I'll bless your cybernetics for you."

* * *

"Ah, Lord Commander," the head techpriest exclaimed as he walked into the room, "punctual for once it appears!"

"Greetings Archmagos," Jack held up a hand, and shook the metal claw of the Adeptus Mechanicus, "I figured I'd get here early this time, I'd not suggest getting used to it though."

"Too late, Lord Commander," the priest said, walking over to the sleek, black case sitting on the counter on the far side of the room, "I fear I'm already used to it."

"Bad idea Archmagos Marron." Jack chuckled to himself.

"Archmagos Marron, bah!" The middle aged techpriest waved his hand dismissively, opening the case, "Drop the formalities Mr. Ahab, you can call me Marron here."

"Sure thing." Jack said, as the priest removed an object form the case and turned back. "So what has the Omnissiah blessed me with today?"

"A new weapon." Marron said, holding a pristine, unpainted prosthetic hand, ended just before the wrist, the shiny, untouched chrome finish of the metal polished to a mirror shine.

"Another hand it seems…" Jack said, inputting a few commands into the miniature console in his forearm, a single plate sliding back to expose the touchscreen, his entire hand popping off after a few keystrokes. "I'll just, put this on the chair."

After placing the detached prosthetic on the chair, Jack held out his wrist, at which Marron simply popped it onto his arm, and with only a few clicks, it was secured on his wrist.

"It's operation is very similar to your pile driver function, and as such I have temporarily replaced their activation methods," Marron began, directing Jack over to a second room, which basically resembles a miniature shooting range, "so simply make a fist, aim, and place your hand on your forearm. It's activated by your sub-dermal pads, so it fires when you want it to."

"Alright," Jack shrugged, aiming his fist at the target, before slowly placing his right hand on his cybernetic forearm, a silent humm vibrating gently up his arm as the electronic pads under the skin of his fingers and palms linked up with the internal electronics, "so I just think-"

As much as he would have like to finish the sentence, Jack was cut off by the sound of an explosion, and the sensation/experience of watching his hand shoot thirty feet across the room, tear right through the plywood target, and crack the concrete wall behind that, a small rocket fizzling out on the back of it.

"By the Emperor…" He whispered to himself, as Marron eagerly clapped, which made a sound like two metal pans slamming against each other.

"Praise the Omnissiah that worked wonderfully!" The Archmagos shouted, eagerly walking up to the Lord Commander. "If my calculations are correct, that should be enough to take down a Juggernaut!"

"Great. I've got a rocket fist now." Jack grinned, then fell neutral again, "But uh, how do I get it back? I doubt a Juggernaut would let me grab it if I missed."

"Have a little faith Mr. Ahab," Marron gestured to the wrist of the arm, "can you see the cable in the center, the one running out into the range? Yes that one, now using the same commands to retract your pile driver, you can 'reel in' your fired arm."

Doing as instructed, Jack began to reel the arm in. The two watch, one with growing annoyance and the other with growing amusement as the hand dislodged from the wall, and was unceremoniously dragged across the concrete, producing an obnoxious scraping noise as it was jerked slowly along, until it came to a stop hanging a foot down from his wrist, only resuming its return after a second of awkward silence, finally reattaching.

"You uh," Ahab look at the hand, it's pristine chrome surface now covered in black soot and scratches, "you think we can make it a bit smoother? Quicker would be nice too.."

"Yes. That is something we need to fine tune evidently." The Archmagos spoke in a dry, humorless voice. "I shall look into it. But in other matters, you are leaving soon, are you not?"

"Yes, that I am." Jack said, reattaching his original arm as he scooped it up from the chair as the two moved back into the main room. "This campaign needs to happen sooner rather than later, we need the land."

"It is fairly crowded here now."

"New Zealand had five and a half million people living here, and that was back in 2045." Commander Ahab ran a hand through his unkempt hair, "With everyone who came after the fall and general population increase, there's nearly fifteen million living here now, and we're about to have a lot of trouble feeding them if this growth keeps up."

"I am starting to notice," Marron added, "our rations have been slowly getting smaller these last few months. And of course, once winter ends we'll have another population boom. Every year, like clockwork in the summers."

"Yeah," Jack rubbed his tired face with his organic hand, "We've got a strong, large fighting force, but sometimes I wish our people were a tad less prolific. Feeding everyone's become a logistical nightmare even now."

"Even with trawlers out 24/7?" The Archmagos asked, "Surely the oceans bounty can sustain us."

"Aye, that it can," Commander Ahab smiled lightly, "even before the fall, our oceans had made a hell of a comeback. And nearly twenty years without major fishing has done wonders for the ocean. But relying on seafood alone is a bad idea. Something bad could happen, and then we'd be screwed. That's not a chance I want to take."

"I understand." Marron said, falling silent for a moment. "So what is the plan for this campaign?"

"Well the first phase is going to be our first real offensive foray offshore," Jack said, now reviewing the details in his head, "we need more land for food and factories, but it can't be too far from New Zealand and it can't be heavily infested, but we can't waste time on some tiny speck of pacific territory."

"And mainland Australia is far too large for us to handle right now."

"Yes. The plan is to take Clarke Island, then Cape Barren, then Flinders Island. We'll use Flinders as a staging point for out main target." He said, pausing momentarily to pull a small rectangular phone analog out of his pocket, checking for any messages while Marron continued.

"Flinders Island," the Archmagos muttered, "You're going after Tazmania? Why there?"

"We literally just need land and resources, we can't keep raiding backwater Australia, it's too risky." Jack slipped his mini datapad back in his pocket. "We can build small scale factories without worrying about civilians if we get Tazmania, and from there we'll take out time with the pacific islands."

"And after that? What happens once we've established ourselves in the pacific?"

"Then?" The Lord Commander looked over to the Adeptus Mechanicus, "Hawaii."

* * *

**Aight gamers, let me know what you think, and make sure to review! That shit really keeps me going. **

**-Athk0r3**


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